Charles White's commitment to African American history and culture was consistently reflected in his record sleeve and book jacket illustrations. Typical in this regard were his illustrations for Philip Sterling and Rayford Logan's Four Took Freedom: The Lives of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Robert Smalls, and Blanche K. Bruce. The book was published by Zenith Books in 1967. The book was aimed at a juvenile readership, and this particular copy was formerly the property of Watkins Mill Elementary Center. The cover featured portraits by White of the four who took freedom, and the book itself was liberally illustrated with White's renderings of various scenes from the lives of Tubman, Douglass, Smalls, and Bruce. While the cover portraits (versions of which also appeared at the beginning of each respective section), White's other illustrations in the book are looser, freer, particularly creative and graphically innovative.